Invisible Circus

The hallway is empty when Ron steals out of his room, but he’s not surprised: he has yet to actually see any of his neighbors, and has only ever heard them through the walls, thumping and scuffling around like over-grown rats. But his luck doesn’t hold; when he stumbles down the stairs from his flat, his grip tight on the banister because he’s had too little sleep and he doesn’t trust his feet to stay underneath him, the landlord, Finney, is sitting at his desk.

The hunched man eyes him for a moment, then says, "Mornin’ there, Mr. Weasley."

Ron stops on the third step from the bottom and stares at the man. His bald head is shiny, reflecting the light of the candles set on top of the shelves behind him, and he’s grinning at Ron, widely enough to display the three teeth that are missing from his upper gum.

"Good morning," Ron says as he starts moving again. Down another step and Finney’s eyes follow him, down another two and the landlord nods his head at Ron and beckons him closer with two twitches of a gnarled hand.

Ron goes, but not before he lets his gaze slide to the door, to the dusty window at the front of the building, and the street outside. He could just leave, yes, but it would be too suspicious if he did, he thinks. As he walks to the desk he tries not to twitch and fidget, because he can think of no good reason for the landlord to be talking to him. The rent’s not due yet, after all, and he hasn’t reported anything amiss with his plumbing—even though he’s sure that some of those creaks and groans can’t be natural.

"It’s a grand day, in’nit, Mr. Weasley?"

Ron nods warily. He supposes that for most of the population of Knockturn Alley, it would be considered a good day. A grand day, even. And he needs to make the world believe that he thinks it’s a grand day, too, so he tries to smile.

"I wish I could be out there today, to hear Nott," he says, with what he hopes is a wistful tone. "To hear him make his announcement."

And it’s not a lie, exactly, because part of him does actually want to be there to hear what Nott is going to say. To hear how Nott’s going to break the news of his impending candidacy to the rest of the world.

But Ron has to work at the bookshop, Saturday though it is, and for maybe the first time in his life, he’s grateful to his boss for scheduling him during an event he should probably be at. For the excuse it gives him, because before he left the Ministry, the Inspector told him that he’d be safe in Knockturn Alley, but that Diagon Alley was no such haven, and that, of course, was where Nott was going to be, at the intersection between the two.

Besides that, it’s not essential that he be there. The Inspector will have other eyes and ears there, on the Diagon Alley side. He might even be there himself, so there’ll be no need for Ron to make a report.

"It’ll be grand," Finney says again, nodding his head decisively. "One of those splendid speeches of his… A proud day for all of us, it will be."

For the moment, Finney appears to be lost in thought, so Ron seizes his opportunity and moves away from the desk. He walks across the entryway to the door, and his fingers are already wrapped around the door handle by the time the landlord speaks again—

"It’d be a proud day for your brother, too, Mr. Weasley, if he— He’d ‘a liked to see things going this way, I think."

—and Ron wishes he’d been just a mite bit quicker, so he wouldn’t have had to hear those words, because he has to acknowledge them. He has to say, "Yes," even as he keeps himself from looking back over his shoulder, because he feels emotions flitting through his eyes, emotions he’s sure that he doesn’t want anyone else to see.

He keeps his voice steady. "It is what he dreamed about, yes. What he lived for."

What he died for, he doesn’t say.

"Aye," Finney says, and maybe he’s going to keep talking, but Ron won’t let another opportunity pass him by, so he tugs on the metal handle and opens the door and steps out into the street, letting it fall shut with the slap of warped wood on wood behind him.

He pauses for a moment on the stoop, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath of the bitter air, and then starts his walk to work. Day two of his cover of gainful employment, and he keeps his head down as he moves, hoping to avoid as much attention as he possibly can. He sees people’s feet pause as he approaches, though, some even going so far as to take a step towards him, but no one stops him.

For that, at least, he is thankful.

There is a different feeling on the streets today, almost like he’s used to feeling in the Snitch. A muted energy, an undercurrent of excited tension that’s suffused the very air. He can hear whispers, murmured snatches of conversation as he passes by. Nott’s name, more often than not, but also: "Minister of Magic—" "—announcing—" and the occasional "There goes that Weasley, the young one. The one that’s been in the papers."

He ducks his head down lower than before, so that all he can see are the cobblestones beneath his feet. The tension that he’s sensing around him, he wonders briefly if it’s only a reflection of what he feels on the inside, if he’s committing anthropomorphism, if that’s the right word for it, on the whole world, so he looks up. He’ll be able to tell if he sees people’s faces, he’s sure. A tightness of lips, an extra edge to their smiles.

And it’s there, it’s real, but suddenly he doesn’t care, because he recognizes where he is. Off to his right is the alcove from the night before, dark and stinking but otherwise unrecognizable in the daylight. He stops where he is, suddenly enough that the wizard behind him runs into him, and curses at him, before he sees whom, exactly, it is that he’s run into.

"’M sorry, Mr. Weasley," the man says before hurrying away, but Ron hardly hears him. He’s staring at the pile of rubbish, his eyes searching for the crumpled ball of paper that he’d dropped the night before.

It will get to me, the Inspector told him time and time again, his voice soft, the two of them sitting alone in the dark, cluttered office. If it wasn’t safe, I wouldn’t ask you to do it, now would I? No need to worry, but Ron is, suddenly, because what if someone did see him drop the parchment into the pile? What if Nott had someone following him? What if the paper fell into the wrong hands? What if someone deciphered it and the game is up, Ron just doesn’t know it?

It takes all of his willpower to not move towards the alcove, to start sorting through the rubbish with his bare hands, hoping, hoping that his note is not there—or maybe that it is. He can’t, he knows this, because that would be suspicious, and all he’s trying to do now is fit in.

He stares at the alcove for a moment longer, more than a moment, letting the stream of bodies move on by, before he manages to convince himself, with a shake of his head, that he’ll know if he’s been found out soon enough. Too soon, he’s sure, if he has.

He starts walking again, blending back into the crowd, but he’s no longer thinking about Nott and his announcement, his speech. Instead, he concentrates on not looking over his shoulder to search out eyes that might be following his movements a bit too closely. He spends his energy trying to ignore the sudden prickling at the back of his neck, and the fine red hairs there that are standing on end.

He breathes a sigh of relief when he sees the sign for Libris Exacto only a few shop fronts ahead, and for the first time he truly registers the stretch of windows across the front of the building. If the game is up, if Nott sends anyone to get him, he’s sure that he’ll be able to see them coming. If anyone comes, more than likely he’ll be able to get away.

As he approaches the door, he sees Mrs. Chubbs (as thin as her husband is round) standing just inside, looking out into the street, and when their eyes meet, she nods at him.

He’d be safe in Knockturn Alley, the Inspector told him, and for a moment, at least, Ron feels as if he actually will be.

There’s a witch across the street, black dress, black apron, and lumpy in all of the wrong places, running a twig-broom across her stoop. If he leans as close to the glass as he can get without pressing his nose to it, he can see a wizard with his cart at the end of the street. He sells bits and bobs, and from what Ron has seen of his stock, his philosophy seems to be that one man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure.

Ron’s brain registers the fact that Chubbs is coming up behind him, but it’s not until the other man is close enough to lay a hand on Ron’s shoulder that he truly realizes it, and he starts. He darts a guilty look at his employer, then at the till behind him, but when he looks back to his boss, Chubbs doesn’t look upset. He pats the round of his belly, turns to Ron with a kindly smile on his face, then looks back to the window, too, apparently letting his gaze follow where Ron’s had been.

"I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—" Ron starts after a moment, when Chubbs doesn’t say anything. He turns around, ready to go back to the till, and then Chubbs stops him with a cluck of his tongue, a hand that approaches Ron’s arm, but still doesn’t touch.

"No, no, Mr. Weasley. Ron, stay." He pats his belly again. "There is no one here, no one here for you to help. Too many other things be ‘appening today, they do. As you well know."

Ron nods, because it’s true. The denizens of Knockturn Alley have been buzzing with their excitement all morning, and all those who think of it have been dropping a word to Ron. Congratulations mostly, the verbal equivalents of a thumbs up.

"I know," he says. "Oh, yes, I know."

"And you should be going on then, too, as everyone else down this way already has," Chubbs says. "You have just as much right to be there as any of the rest of them do. More right, if you ask me, since you be the reason for this announcement, or so the talk goes."

"I—" Ron says. He opens his mouth, closes it.

"Well, maybe not the reason, but the impetus," Chubbs continues. "The straw that broke the camels back, as the saying goes. You should be there. You should be on your way."

"I—" Ron tries again. He wants to tell Chubbs that he couldn’t, he can’t. There are reasons, he wants to say, but of course, he can’t tell Chubbs what those reasons are, now can he?

"Now, now," Chubbs says. "I won’t take no for an answer, Mr. Weasley, Ron. Not when this is what you’ve been working for. It’s where you should be." He drops his voice to a whisper, so that only Ron can hear. "Besides, people‘ll notice if you aren’t there, they will. And Mr. Nott, he’ll want you there. You being one of his staunchest supporters and all."

Chubbs is warming to his subject, all of a sudden, and Ron knows that he spoke the truth when he said that he wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. If he’s learned naught else about his employer in the previous 72 hours, it’s that he’s stubborn, and once he makes up his mind about something—hiring Ron, for instance—there’s nothing that will change his mind. Especially when Ron can’t give a satisfactory reason that he should.

"Okay," Ron says. He tries to smile, to look like he’s grateful for this opportunity that Chubbs is giving him. And seeing that there’s a satisfied glint in the round, buggy eyes, he thinks that maybe he succeeded. "Thank you, sir. I’ll make up the hours—"

Chubbs just waves his hand back and forth, like he’s batting at a pesky fly.

"Get on with you now," the other man continues, and he holds his arm out to the door of the shop, or maybe to the coat rack that is standing just inside of it, where Ron’s robe is hanging. Then, with a decisive nod of his head, he says, "I want to hear all about it tomorrow. Those things that they won’t go about printing in the Prophet."

And Ron feels his last hope of avoiding the speech die away, withering in his breast.

"I will," he says, and then he leaves the shop, stepping outside and onto the cobbled street.

Nott has already begun his speech then, Ron decides, and he can stop where he is, head back to the bookshop and tell Chubbs that he was too late, that Nott was just finishing up when he arrived. Thank you for the thought and all, but it just wasn’t meant to be, apparently.

But although his pace slows, his feet don’t stop moving. He just starts moving more carefully, pulling the collar of his robe up more firmly around his neck, as if he can hide in it. As if he’ll be more likely to blend in.

And then he’s there, on the outskirts of the crowd, down a ways from where Nott is standing, several broken arches and a solid press of magical folk separating them. There are heads, legs, whole bodies leaning out windows of upper stories of buildings. He can see Nott, though, so he must be standing on something, a box, a platform of some sort, unless some of those surrounding him are using spells to elevate him off of the ground?

Ron knows that they’re using an amplifying charm, because he can hear Nott just as clearly as if the tall man is standing right by his side, his voice as seductive as ever.

"And today," Nott is saying. He’s not facing Ron at the moment, is instead using his hands to gesture at both sides of the crowd, those in Knockturrn Alley, and those who might have stopped to listen on the Diagon Alley side.

"And today, my friends, old and new, today, as I look around at your faces, as I look into your eyes, I am hopeful. I have great hopes for the future of the Wizarding World. Why, you may ask. Why, in this world, where former darkness is still a too recent memory, where the works of Voldemort still taint our lives, what hope could you possibly have? Listen and I shall tell you, my friends."

Ron doesn’t even realize that he’s moving forward until he passes underneath the first of the broken archways, a shadow falling over his eyes. Those around him are parting to let him through, too, but he’s not sure if it’s because of who he is, what he represents, or whether he looks imposing enough that they don’t want to get into any arguments with him.

"I have hope for the future," Nott continues, "because when I look around at those surrounding me today, I see strength. I see power here, I can feel it in the air, I can. Ripe, my friends, ready to be used and wielded, not hidden away. Our strength is not meant to be subverted as a means of appeasing the Muggles out there."

He flips his hand in the direction of the Leaky Cauldron, Muggle London in general. It doesn’t really matter, though, Ron supposes as he makes himself stop moving forward a good fifteen paces from Nott’s stage, for a stage he can now see that it is. It’s decorated in innocuous colors that can’t be related to one particular Hogwarts house.

If such affiliations still matter, that is.

He’s close enough to see the sweat that’s beaded on Nott’s forehead, the faces of the witches and wizards standing beyond the boundary of Knockturn Alley. There is a small crowd, solid, of ten or fifteen, with more flickering past, some pausing for a moment, two, more, then leaving again just as suddenly.

"As your Minister, this I promise you," Nott says. "I promise you that in the Wizarding World, it will be the Wizard that comes first."

More hollers and claps, more noise, and for a moment, even with the amplifying charm, Nott’s voice is nearly drowned out. He laughs at the noise, Ron can see him throw his head back, even if he can’t really hear the sound. Then the hands come out again, motioning for the crowd to quiet, and it works. Ron can’t help but be amazed; even outside the confines of the Snitch it works.

"Wizards will come first, be they pureblood or not, Muggleborn or not. Our very way of life is at stake, my friends, and as your Minister, I will protect that. I will protect you."

What he says isn’t true, of course; their way of life isn’t at stake, and the only danger it’s in—as far as Ron can see, anyway—is from Nott himself, but as he listens to the Slytherin’s words, he feels himself wanting to believe. He can feel the belief radiating off of the tight press of bodies surrounding him, and he wants to believe like they do. He wants to feel the joy that they do.

"My name is Theodore Nott," Nott says, an air of finality in his voice, "and I ask you to elect me as your next Minister of Magic. A vote for me, my friends, will be a vote for wizards everywhere."

Then he steps off of the platform and into the crowd, surrounded by four of his hulking guards. He’s only on the ground for a moment, though, before there’s the snapping sound of apparation, and Ron is left staring at the empty spot along with everyone else. The crowd surges forward, as if to fill the sudden hole, and Ron is carried along with it, just for a moment, until he manages to anchor himself against the wall again.

But it’s too late, because from his new vantage-point he can see the two faces that, more than anything, he doesn’t want to see. Fifteen, twenty paces away still, out in Diagon Alley, but there they are: Harry and Hermione, the both of them with their arms crossed over their chests, the both of them frowning.

But before Ron can move, before he remembers that if you see something, more than likely it can see you, before he registers that he’s a good half a head taller than those around him, with red hair that shines like a beacon, his eyes have met Harry’s and locked.

…and what he sees there is not something he ever thought to see on his friend’s face, at least not directed at him. Hatred, disgust. Flashing green eyes, like Ron’s only ever seen directed at Voldemort.

His breathing quickens, his heart is pounding so heavily in his chest, all of a sudden, that he’s afraid it will break its way out of his very ribcage. He feels faint, light headed, and he swallows rapidly once, three times. Then Harry looks away, turns to Hermione and raises his hand in Ron’s direction, and he’s no longer frozen.

He ducks away immediately, without looking to Hermione because he can’t face the accusation in her eyes, too, and before he’s gone five steps, he succumbs to the temptation to apparate, so he does. A crack and he’s gone and an instant later, he’s standing on the street outside his apartment house, shaking, with what he’s not quite sure, but he’s trembling so hard that his teeth are chattering.

He pushes his way by two witches, ignoring their startled exclamations behind him, and the door to the building opens in front of him with a muttered "alohamora". He lets it slam shut behind him as he takes the stairs two at a time. He’s still shaking by the time he makes it to his room, and it doesn’t stop even after the door closes behind him. He stands still for a moment, then moves to his bed, his legs unsteady, but he manages to keep himself upright until he reaches the mattress. Then he collapses with such a force that the air is driven out of his lungs.

Ron closes his eyes as he inches forward, crawling over the rough blanket until he feels the thin pillow beneath his head, and he clutches it to him.

In his minds eye, he can still see the pinched hatred on Harry’s face, the look in his eyes, but despite the temptation to open his own, he keeps them closed, trying as desperately as he can to forget.

His breathing is quick again, his pulse pounding in his ears, as he reaches out towards it slowly. In the darkness, he sees a dark lump of wax sealing it, the bumps of a seal raised on its surface, and he calms a bit.

The Inspector then.

Gingerly, he picks the piece of parchment up off of his pillow and rubs his thumb over the wax, feeling the dip of the crescent moon underneath his skin, before running his fingers underneath the loose edge of the paper in order to break it. He unfolds the note, and in the center of the parchment, he sees two sentences:

Bravo, Weasley. You really had us all fooled, didn’t you?

It’s only the first sentence that matters, though. The Inspector received his message and it was successfully translated.

Ron almost smiles. Something in his chest loosens, causing his shoulders to slump, and it’s relief, he thinks. As relieved as he can feel without waking up back at the Burrow, in his own bed, and realizing that the last three years have been a dream.

He stares at the note for several moments, until his concentration is shattered by the tapping of an owl beak at his window. White and fluffy, he’d recognize that owl anywhere: Hedwig. She’s perched outside, talons digging into the rotting wood of the sill, and her wide eyes are blinking knowingly. She’s looking at him reproachfully, he thinks, but whether it’s that she doesn’t like Knockturn Alley, or she’s imitating Harry’s displeasure, he can’t tell.

The walk to the window only takes two steps, but his chest and shoulders area already tight by the time he reaches it. The window squeaks as he pushes it up, paint crumbling around his fingers from the unaccustomed pressure.

She hops inside and sticks her leg out so that he can untie the roll of parchment there, which he does. Thankfully, she doesn’t wait around for a treat, because he doesn’t have anything to give her, not even a crumb. She’s gone from sight before he can blink, before he can say, "Thank you."

Without bothering to close the window, Ron moves back to the bed and sits again, his legs as boneless as they’ve been yet that day. It’s more difficult to open this letter, not because the knot on the string tying it shut is caught, but because he doesn’t want to. He knows what will be in this letter, after all, and it’s not something that he wants to read.

And not just because he suddenly realize that secretly (even from himself) he’s been hoping that Malfoy was right. Hoping that Harry and Hermione weren’t commenting because deep down they knew that there was more to the story, that he wouldn’t just up and betray them like that, no matter what they heard elsewhere.

That unconscious hope is gone now, he knows it. His heart aches with the knowledge.

Slowly, carefully, he slides the string off of the parchment, and unrolls it. He may have been expecting paragraph upon paragraph of betrayed ranting, but there are only a few sentences.

Today I saw you— I saw you, Ron, and I—

You— I have no words.

I saw you and I realized that I don’t know you anymore. As of today, Ron Weasley, you are dead to me.

And Ron laughs, laughs as he feels the sharp stabs of pain in his heart, like several daggers all twisting simultaneously, because the only other option is to cry. Which he’s already doing, he realizes, because his cheeks are wet, dripping. He’s laughing and crying and if the walls weren’t so paper thin, he thinks that he’d howl, scream, throw himself on the floor and kick and yell.

All he can do is bury his face in the thin pillow again, letting it muffle the laughter-filled sobs until he can bring them under his control.

It takes longer than he wants it to.

Two hours before, that might have made him smile. Now he just scans the room, his eyes searching for the blond that he knows must be here, because he’s not quite sure what he’ll do if he’s not.

But he is. On their second circuit of the room, Ron’s eyes finally light on Malfoy, his back to the door. He’s sitting with a woman, black-haired and familiar looking. Pansy Parkinson, Ron realizes suddenly, and for a moment, he’s tempted to turn around, to forget this, but no. He can’t.

He takes a deep breath then begins stalking across the room, hardly noticing the serving girls that smile at him and the patrons that call out his name, or raise a mug of ale in his direction. And Pansy warns Malfoy that he’s coming, apparently, because by the time he reaches the little table, the blond has turned to look at him, gray eyes narrowed.

"It was proving to be such a pleasant evening, too," the other man says, a sneer on his lips, and Ron hears Pansy laugh at that, but it’s not nearly as unfriendly a sound as it was through all of their years at Hogwarts. She actually looks as if it’s the punch line of a joke that the three of them are sharing together.

"Ronald Weasley," she says when he draws close enough for her to speak without raising her voice. "Draco was just filling me in on the details of your recent treachery. Really, I must say that I’m proud of you. But if any more of your lot show up here, I may just have to start changing my opinion of the loyal Gryffindors, and quite frankly, that’s not something I’m particularly keen to do."

"She’s just back from Albania today," Malfoy says, "and really, I was just telling her that she shouldn’t trust a word you say. That you’re up to—"

Ron can’t let him finish, not when the smile is fading from Pansy’s face. Not when he’s too emotionally drained to defend himself—and he should have thought of that before he came, now shouldn’t he have? But he needed to get out of his room, get fresh air. Go to the one place he belongs as much as he belongs anywhere in this new life of his.

He tosses Harry’s now crumpled parchment down onto the table between the two Slytherins, and while Pansy does reach for it, it’s Malfoy who picks it up first. His eyes widen—whether at realizing whom, exactly, the note is from, or the contents, Ron can’t tell—and then he carelessly tosses it to Pansy, who also reads it through. Her lips mouth the words, and they’re all the more real for it, Ron thinks as he watches her.

Malfoy and Pansy stare at each other for several long moments, communicating things with their eyes like Ron, Harry and Hermione used to be able to communicate. Then Malfoy turns to Ron. The both of them do actually, but it’s Malfoy’s eyes that hold Ron’s, as if searching out the truth in the pain there.

"Now do you believe?" Ron asks quietly, sounding defeated even to his own ears. He’s too tired to play games, too tired to dance around Malfoy, but Malfoy doesn’t say anything to him.

Instead he waves over one of the serving girls and says, "Get Weasley here one of his usual, yes?" Then, with another look to Ron. "Better make it something harder. A shot of the strongest thing you’ve got behind your counter."

He flicks his hand, shooing her away, and at that, Pansy pulls out the third chair at the table for Ron to sit in. She pats the tabletop, too, encouraging him, and for the second time that night, Ron wants to laugh.

It figures, doesn’t it, that when he needs comfort in this new life of his, he turns to those he used to need comfort from.

He sits and Pansy—she must have changed in the years since graduation, too—actually reaches out to pat his hand. Malfoy reads the note again, before tossing it back to Ron. He crosses his arms over his chest, quite obviously studying Ron, weighing things, but what, Ron can’t tell. He just stares back.

"It always comes back to Potter in the end, doesn’t it," Malfoy says finally, and Ron is pretty sure that it’s as much acknowledgement that Ron’s façade might actually be legit as he is ever going to get.

"Yes," Pansy agrees. "Poor Potter, faced with yet another betrayal to his poor, perfect world." She laughs. "Someday he’ll realize that the world doesn’t revolve around him. But today, apparently, is not that day."

It says something, Ron thinks, as to the depths of his hurt that he doesn’t immediately leap to Harry’s defense. Not that he could have, of course, but that he doesn’t want to. Not right at the moment.

Also, it’s true.

"Always back to Harry in the end," Ron agrees, and when his drink arrives, he downs it in one gulp, hardly listening as Malfoy orders him another.

tbc.